Nuclear war wouldn’t just kill people – it could kill the planet’s food supply. Imagine a world where sunlight vanishes behind thick smoke. In this scenario, temperatures crash, crops fail, and grocery store shelves go empty.
That’s the chilling reality of a nuclear winter – not science fiction, but a real risk if global conflict escalates.
In a new study, scientists at Penn State explored how a nuclear winter could affect global corn production, the most widely grown grain in the world.
The team also offered a practical idea to prepare for this worst-case scenario: stockpiling “agricultural resilience kits” filled with cold-tolerant seeds that could help keep food growing, even in the darkest of times.
Famine after the fire
The researchers modeled six nuclear war scenarios, ranging from regional to large-scale global conflict. Each scenario simulated the effect of soot released into the atmosphere from nuclear firestorms -anywhere from five to 165 million tons of it.
In the best-case scenario, global corn yields dropped by 7 percent. In the worst-case, an 80 percent drop.
“An 80 percent drop in global crop production would have catastrophic consequences,” said Yuning Shi, associate research professor in Penn State’s Department of Plant Science.
“Even a 7 percent drop in global crop production would have a severe impact on the global food system and economy.”
Corn was chosen not just because it’s everywhere – but because it’s highly sensitive to climate and represents a broader pattern in agriculture. What happens to corn would likely happen to many other crops.
Modeling nuclear food collapse
The team used the Cycles agroecosystem model, developed by scientists at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
It’s a complex simulation tool that tracks how carbon and nitrogen move through the soil, plants, and atmosphere.
With high-performance computing, the model can predict crop growth under different conditions – even under the shadow of nuclear fallout.
“We simulated corn production in 38,572 locations under the six nuclear war scenarios of increasing severity – with soot injections ranging from 5 to 165 tons,” Shi said.
“This investigation advances our understanding of global agricultural resilience and adaptation in response to catastrophic climatic disruptions.”
UV radiation could make it worse
Smoke and soot aren’t the only problem. A nuclear war could also shred the ozone layer, allowing more UV-B radiation to hit the Earth’s surface.
This form of radiation damages DNA, hurts photosynthesis, and stresses plants even further. Shi said this may be the first study to estimate the effect of UV-B radiation on agriculture in a post-nuclear scenario.
The damage wouldn’t be immediate. UV levels would peak 6 to 8 years after the bombs drop – just as the planet struggles to recover.
“The blast and fireball of atomic explosions produce nitrogen oxides in the stratosphere,” Shi explained.
“The presence of both nitrogen oxides and heating from absorptive soot could rapidly destroy ozone, increasing UV-B radiation levels at the Earth’s surface. This would damage plant tissue and further limit global food production.”
Add UV damage on top of climate stress, and corn yields could fall by as much as 87 percent.
Growing food in the dark
The researchers believe there’s a small silver lining – if we act now. By switching to faster-growing corn varieties that can tolerate cold, food yields could increase by up to 10 percent even during nuclear winter, compared to doing nothing. But there’s a catch: seed availability.
That’s where their idea for “agricultural resilience kits” comes in. “These kits would help sustain food production during the unstable years following a nuclear war,” said Armen Kemanian, professor of production systems and modeling at Penn State.
“The agricultural resilience kits concept can be expanded to other disasters – when catastrophes of these magnitude strike, resilience is of the essence.”
These kits would include seeds tailored to different regions and climates. The idea is to give local communities the tools they need to keep farming even if the global food network collapses.
Shi acknowledged the challenges in pulling off such a plan. “If we want to survive, we must be prepared, even for unthinkable consequences,” he said.
Lessons for future food catastrophes
The takeaway isn’t just about weapons. It’s about the fact that our food system is alarmingly fragile.
“Recall that catastrophes of this nature can happen not just because of nuclear war, but due to, for example, violent volcanic eruptions,” Kemanian said.
“One may think that studies of this nature are just navel gazing, but they force us to realize the fragility of the biosphere – the totality of all living things and how they interact with one another and the environment.”
Food doesn’t grow in a vacuum. It depends on stable climate, clean air, and functioning ecosystems. Disrupt that balance, and the consequences ripple through every plate on the planet.
This research doesn’t predict the future. But it helps us prepare for one we hope never arrives.
The full study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
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